Zambian Commodities Exchange Delayed by Legal Holdup

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The Zambian Agricultural Commodities
Exchange, which halted trading in July 2011, postponed
restarting operations after the government delayed a law needed
for the bourse to start up.

The holdup in the legislation needed to certify commodity
warehouses meant the exchange couldn’t meet its previous target
to restart trading by the end of 2012, Executive Director Brian
Tembo said yesterday.

“We have no idea when government will implement the act,”
which will introduce a warehouse certification and receipt
system the exchange needs to resume trading, Tembo said in reply
to e-mailed questions. “We were promised in the fourth quarter
of 2012, but that has not happened.”

Zamace, a 15-member bourse set up in 2007, provided a
trading platform for crops such as wheat, soybeans and
sunflowers as well as cement and fertilizer until it suspended
operations 18 months ago. Zambia is southern Africa’s biggest
corn producer after South Africa and Malawi.

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange said in December it hoped
to start trading a dollar-denominated contract for Zambian corn
in the first quarter.

The Zambia National Farmers Union, which represents
growers, is completeing the purchase of a 20 percent stake of
the agricultural commodities exchange, Tembo said. Talks with
Zambia’s Lloyds Financials Ltd. for the lender to take 10
percent in the exchange are continuing, he said.